Traudl Junge - Hitler's Last Secretary - A Firsthand Account of Life with Hitler [aka Until the Final Hour]

I ask everyone I meet how the attack is going. It should be in full swing now. Are those German guns and tanks that aremaking such a noise? None of the officers know. They are all chasing around like waxwork figures pretending to be busy and deluding themselves.

The doors of Hitler’s conference room are closed. There’s an agitated discussion in progress behind them. My colleague Frau Christian, Martin Bormann’s secretary Fräulein Krüger [92] Else Krüger, married name James, b Hamburg-Altona 9 February 1915; 1942 secretary to Martin Bormann; 1 May 1945 leaves the Führer bunker and flees to the West, interned by the British Army, moves to England. and I are sitting in the dietician’s kitchen drinking strong coffee. We are talking about trivial things just to quell the desperate fear we feel. Each of us is trying to deal with the situation in her own way. No one thinks of eating lunch, although it was lunchtime long ago. Our restlessness makes us go to the door of the conference room again. We hear voices rising and falling. Hitler shouts something, but we can’t make out what. Martin Bormann comes out looking agitated and hands Fräulein Krüger some sheets to be typed out immediately. For a moment we see uniformed backs bent over the street map of Berlin. The meeting looks baffled. Distraught, we move back into the anteroom, where we smoke, wait, whisper…

At last the heavy iron door opens. Linge calls Frau Christian and me in to the Führer With an expression on his face that tells us nothing he goes on to fetch Fräulein Manziarly too. Only a few steps separate us from the life-and-death decision. Now we shall hear the truth.

All the officers who have been discussing the situation are standing outside the open door of the conference room with white, stony faces. Hitler stands motionless in the little anteroom outside his study. All the expression has vanished from his face; his eyes are blank. He looks like his own death mask. His gaze sees nothing. Impersonally, in commanding tones such as I’ve never heard him use to a woman before, he says, ‘Get changed at once. A plane is leaving in an hour and will take you south. All is lost, hopelessly lost.’

I am frozen rigid. The picture on the wall is hanging crooked, and there’s a mark on the lapel of Hitler’s jacket. Everything feels far away, as if it were packed in cotton wool.

Eva Braun is the first to rouse herself. She goes towards Hitler, who has already placed his hand on the handle of his door, takes both his hands and says, smiling and in the comforting tones you might use to a sad child, ‘But you know I shall stay with you. I’m not letting you send me away.’ Then Hitler’s eyes begin to shine from within, and he does something none of us, not even his closest friends and servants, have ever seen him do before: he kisses Eva Braun on the mouth, while the officers stand outside waiting to be dismissed. I don’t want to say it, but it comes out of its own accord; I don’t want to stay here and I don’t want to die, but I can’t help it. ‘I’m staying too,’ I say.

I had to pack a crate with the most important files,the paperwork and documents given to me by Schaub. Mechanically I put them together one by one. Should I send my own things home too? Perhaps there wouldn’t be any room left for luggage in the last few planes going south tomorrow? But perhaps we’d have to hold out here for weeks? I didn’t send anything. The plane that took off with its important cargo and two of Hitler’s orderlies was never seen again.

Hitler shook hands with everyone in turn, saying goodbye. Only the most important liaison officers stayed behind. And Bormann too, of course, always the channel for any news that had to reach Hitler.

That afternoon there was another long military briefing. The Russians were now right outside the gates of the city. Hitler gave orders for one final attack, with all the troops and planes to be found in Berlin. Every single tank, every gun must go to the front. The bunker echoed with the explosions of the small bombs that the Russians kept dropping over the city, and with Hitler’s imperative voice too. The generals left the small, stuffy conference room red-faced. Frau Christian and I sat timidly outside in the corridor. Fräulein Krüger, Bormann’s secretary, had joined us in these last few days. She too could say only that her boss expected either to leave Berlin in the next few days, or… We had no clear idea of the other alternative.

Once again we had to wait. Even Hitler could do nothing more now. He retreated to be with his dogs, which were now being kept in a cubicle near the lavatories. Then he sat in silence on the little bench in the corridor with the puppy on his lap, watching people coming and going. The staff unwaveringly went about their duties. The servants functioned calmly and reliably as ever, carrying out Hitler’s wishes. Theo Morell, who had heart trouble, sat in his room in the bunker worrying. The tension was unbearable.

Eva Braun came out of her room. It was quiet outside now. We had no idea what the weather was like. There was no window to show us where the sun stood in the sky. We wanted to go out in the park, to give the dogs and ourselves a little fresh air and daylight. A hazy cloud of dust and smoke hung over Berlin. The air was mild and you could feel the spring. Eva Braun, Frau Christian and I walked through the park of the Reich Chancellery in silence. There were deep holes everywhere in the well-tended turf, with empty metal containers and broken branches lying around. We saw dugouts and heaps of bazookas at regular intervals along the perimeter wall. Was this to be the final line of defence? We didn’t believe it. Tomorrow, or maybe in the next few days, German troops would drive out the enemy.

We passed through a gap in the ruined, fallen wall and went into the grounds of the Foreign Office. The trees were in blossom, quiet and peaceful. Only a few days ago we women had practised with pistols here. Hitler had finally given his permission. Back in East Prussia, when the Russians were coming closer and closer, Frau Christian and I had already asked if it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to learn how to handle a pistol. At the time Hitler had replied, smiling, ‘No, ladies! I don’t want to die by the hand of a secretary. Aim darts with your eyes, that will do!’ But now he suddenly had no more objections. We had shot at huntsman’s practice targets under Rattenhuber’s supervision. Hitler sent us into the abandoned grounds of the Foreign Office so that we couldn’t do any harm, and here we still saw the tattered paper targets recording our hits. We had no chance to practise any more◦– the Russian artillery was doing all the shooting around here. But today, briefly, all was quiet. Hidden behind some shrubs in a small round flowerbed we found a beautiful bronze statue. A young naiad with a charming figure stood here in the garden under the blossoming trees. She suddenly seemed to us incredibly beautiful in all this bleakness. All at once we heard the birds still twittering, we saw the daffodils flowering in the grass, and nature waking to new life. We were almost glad to see that all this still existed. That dreadful bunker was surely to blame for the terrible, oppressive atmosphere. Up here in the open air you could breathe more easily, your head was clearer. The dogs romped about on the grass, and we sat on a rock and smoked. Even Eva Braun lit a cigarette. Seeing our surprised looks, she said, ‘Oh, children, I just have to start smoking again. With extraordinary worries like mine, surely I can do something out of the ordinary too.’ But she had a box of menthol pastilles in her bag and took the precaution of popping one in her mouth when we heard the first siren sound and clambered down again.

Down in the bunker Hitler was sitting in the corridor with Goebbels, Bormann and Burgdorf. They were discussing the coming attack. Hitler seemed physically rather more erect and stronger again. We came in from outside, feeling better and full of fresh air, to be received by a surge of hope and confidence. At least a decision would finally be made now. Tomorrow we would find out whether Hitler was going to Berchtesgaden or meant to stay in Berlin for ever. Hitler told us to sit down with him. Everything was very unconventional now that there were so few of us. Eva Braun sat beside Hitler, and taking no notice of the other men she immediately began wheedling him into what she wanted. ‘I say, do you know that statue in the Foreign Office? A lovely sculpture! It would look really good by the pool in my garden. Do please buy it for me if everything turns out all right and we get out of Berlin!’ She looked hopefully at him. Hitler took her hand. ‘But I don’t know whose it is. It’s probably state property, in which case I can’t buy it and put it in a private garden.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘if you succeed in beating the Russians back and liberating Berlin you can make an exception for once!’ Hitler laughed at this feminine logic, but he didn’t discuss the matter any more. Eva, who was painfully clean and tidy, discovered some red and blue specks of colour on Hitler’s field-grey uniform tunic. ‘Oh look, you’re all dirty! You can’t wear that jacket any more. You don’t have to imitate “Old Fritz” in everything and go around looking as scruffy as he did.’ Hitler protested. He was no longer a commander, a politician, a dictator. ‘But this is my working suit, after all. I can’t put on an apron when I’m holding a conference and I have to use coloured pens.’ In fact she wasn’t being fair, since he was meticulous about cleanliness himself. He never shook hands with anyone if he had just touched his dog, however lightly.